


to dance along the light of day

by postfixrevolution



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Drabble, F/M, First Meet, Pre-Relationship, author abuses figurative language a lot call the cops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-14
Updated: 2016-07-14
Packaged: 2018-07-23 23:03:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7483443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/postfixrevolution/pseuds/postfixrevolution
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasn’t a problem of there being music or being none; the notes were effused into her skin and bones, thrumming in her heartbeat and whispering its glissandos and crescendos in the sway of her hair and the cadence of her steps.</p>
            </blockquote>





	to dance along the light of day

**Author's Note:**

> The sheer lack of Azura/Laslow here makes me sad, so! I am here to help fix it, one fic at at time.
> 
> Unbeta-ed but spellchecked, as usual, and I hope you enjoy~!
> 
> -
> 
> _She acts like summer and walks like rain_  
>  _Reminds me that there's a time to change, hey, hey, hey_  
>  **-[Drops of Jupiter](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Xf-Lesrkuc), Train**

The only discernible sign of her presence is the soft crunch of leaves underfoot. Aside from that wisping afterthought of a sound, she is silence and grace, floating along in the newborn dawn sunlight almost like a ghost. 

It is only with his war-sharpened ears that Laslow catches the soft crunch of dew-soaked leaves under her feet, and he stills in his morning walk, tilts his head toward the source of the sound. She’s just past a curtain of vibrant vines and branches, contentment conscripted on her delicate features, golden eyes slid shut as she moves to the tempo of a softly hummed melody. He hears only every few notes of it, so softly does it emanate from her closed lips, and the dancer inside of him urges him to move closer, to let the music ensconce and envelop him so that he might translate its legatos and crescendos with the line of his posture, the cadence of his steps. 

Azura is a vision, a songstress with dance as her second language, and where his own ears fail him, the sway of her hips and the twirl of her skirts fill in the measures where music might exist. It begins in the back of his mind, a soft melody to match the softness of her steps, and Laslow is entranced. She is song in physical form and all he can do is stare.

He wants to dance with her. It’s not so much a realization as it is a seed that is planted in his head, put there by the soft crunch of leaves under her feet and nurtured by the way her arms stretch outward with the elegance of a bird’s wings, the way her hair twists like silk ribbons every time she spins. Her soft humming has long since faded - Laslow can’t tell if she had stopped or if his imagination had taken over, written its own paperless symphony with her dance as the conductor’s baton - and as she bends down, slows to graceful stop, he  _ feels _ the decrescendo in the very center of his chest, feels his breath leave him and a shiver run down his spine. 

Golden eyes open slowly, long eyelashes fluttering open to reveal molten irises, bleary as though they had just awoken from a long sleep. And perhaps they had, perhaps they had been lost to another world as she danced; she was so ethereal that the wave of her hair could have been the oceans - her skirts dancing moonlight and her flesh that of a ghost, so weightless and abstract - and Laslow would have believed her nothing less than divine. 

The bleariness fades away, gives way to an alertness that focuses itself on him, on his own dull steel irises, his raincloud-grey hair and his sun stained skin. The serenity that had softened her features is quick to disappear, replaced with a guarded apathy, lips pressed tightly together. She’s beautiful, undeniably so, but Laslow laments the change nonetheless, the image of a goddess dancing only a fast-fading memory in his head.

“Laslow,” she addresses him tersely. “Were you watching me?”

He blinks, shaking away the lingering wonder that still clings to the forefront of his thoughts. The song that had been so easily heard starts to fall away, but he can’t find the drive to grasp at the crumbling mezzo-fortes past the suspicion that clouds her golden eyes. 

“Forgive me, Lady Azura,” he sighs, running fingers through his bangs. The song is long forgotten by now, gone with the sigh that had fallen from his lips at her name. “I couldn’t bring myself to look away,” he adds with a weak laugh. “You’re not, er. Upset, are you?”

She tilts her head, regards him curiously, wordlessly. Laslow shifts his weight from foot to foot, waits for a response to fall from her lips. There is a poise to her that makes her every movement fluid, and even the unblinking intensity of her gaze is breathtaking; embarrassment bubbles in his chest, but he can’t deny the awe that shortens his sentences and twists his tongue. 

“I’m not upset,” she tells him. A small smile pulls up at her lips.  “Were you worried?”

He shakes his head frantically. “No, of course not!” Laslow insists. “Just, ah… entranced. I had no idea you were a dancer, milady.”

“I’m not,” she replies simply. “But you are, are you not? I’ve heard many people say it.”

“I am,” he answers slowly. “What else did they have to say?”

“Nothing bad, but the term  _ inspiring _ came up quite often. I’d like to see you dance myself someday, if you don’t mind,” she says. “Perhaps I can accompany with my singing when you do.”

Steel-grey eyes widen, and he stares at her owlishly. “You’d like to accompany me?” he echoes.

A soft giggle bubbles past her lips, quick but pleasant on his ears; Laslow is reminded of imagined crescendos and sforzandos, seen and felt rather than heard. Her smile is wider this time, and it reaches her molten gold eyes, setting the brilliant color alight with a lively spark.

“It would be my honor,” she tells him warmly. 

He blinks at her, still a little wide-eyed and dizzy, the musical lilt of her laugh still present in the echoing caverns of his mind. When Azura blinks at him expectantly, he shakes the brief daze away, reaching up to brush his bangs out of his face and offer her a sheepish smile of his own.

“On the contrary, Lady Azura,” he says. “It would be  _ mine _ .”


End file.
